Yet Another Take on McQUEEN

Our pal, Graham Hill had a lot to say about our recent blogs on Steve McQueen.

Regarding ’Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid’ and McQueen, Graham asserts: “He bowed out over star billing, not because of Robert Redford.

McQueen and (Paul) Newman had a heated rivalry going back to Steve’s minor role withNewman on ‘Someone Up There Likes Me,’ in which Newman got the lead role which was slated for the late James Dean.

The billing issue came up again on ‘The Towering Inferno,’ but was settled with a compromise.

I should excuse myself, as Steve’s business partner in his Solar Productions, RobertRelyea, executive producer of ‘BULLITT,’ was my dear friend.

The sad irony of Steve McQueen aka The King Of Cool, was that in his troubled personal life he was totally insecure.

Another irony, on his early picture THE BLOB, he was offered a good percentage of the gross, but feeling it was only a cheap nothing movie, he took the money upfront instead. The real irony though, is that because of Steve’s iconic stardom THE BLOB went on to earn more money proportionally than any of his block-buster hits!

Like I said guys, the “King of Cool” was anything but in real life.

His paranoia and insecurities, made worse by his drug habit, cost him the friendship of both John Sturges and Robert Relyea on Le Mans.

But as you say, most stars are more than a handful, to put it mildly.

As for press agents and handlers today, the more their star gets into trouble the better their fans seem to like it!